Another week. Another chunk of games have been played...

The Last of Us left me looking at my game shelf in the same way you might stare into an abyss. Having finished Naughty Dog's crowing PS3 achievement I've been searching for something that would match up, and it's not been easy. Resident Evil 6 was clearly a terrible choice, so that's now been benched (quite possibly forever), and I've borrowed a copy of Mass Effect.

Over the years I've bought the second and third games in the series, assuming that I simply wouldn't get on with the more old-school gameplay offered in the original, but on advice I'm playing through all three. First impressions are that BioWare's Xbox 360 debut holds up pretty well despite its age, and the dialogue and delivery is still leagues ahead of most the competition. It's too soon to say if it'll hold my attention until its conclusion, but I'm hopeful as I've got two more games sat on my shelf waiting for their turn.

Simon Miller, Editor-In-Chief - Mount Your Friends, Xbox Indie Games

This week, Chris Bratt made me play Mount Your Friends, an indie game that awaits you on Xbox Live Marketplace. Genuinely one of the strangest things I've ever experienced in my life, it asks that you climb up a goat – this is not a joke – and hit the start button when you get to the highest point you feel you can.

This is obviously rather easy when you start off – you're merely attempting to get atop the stationary animal – but once you, and your friends, have made a few attempts, there's the small matter of climbing up their torsos as well. If this sounds insane then you've probably got the gist of it because, frankly, Mount Your Friends is other worldly. Throw in that the controls are designed to be rather fiddly and you've got a game that you'll only ever understand properly when you sit down and play it.

Confession time: I always thought Square's 'masterpiece' was a tad overrated. I certainly didn't think it was the greatest game of all time, as some people were suggesting. But then, I was only 11 years old when Final Fantasy VII first rolled out, and my idea of a good time was pushing buttons to make dogs rap with onion men in Parappa The Rapper or running away from boulders in Crash Bandicoot, rather than getting tangled up in tales of love and betrayal.

Going back to it 16 years later, though, it soon becomes pretty apparent that the game's themes and narrative washed straight over me as a kid. I have a much greater understanding of what it all means now: I can relate to the characters and empathise with their circumstances, and I view some in entirely different ways – Cloud isn't the hero I remember him being, but a cold, self-centred mercenary. So though I'm still far from finishing it, looking back on it, maybe you were right. Maybe Final Fantasy VII is the greatest game of all time – or one of the most influential, important and touching, at least.

After missing it at E3, I decided to have a little go of Killzone: Shadow Fall at a recent Sony event. In fairness, it's not as bad as I was anticipating, but it's still very dull. Which is surprising, seeing as Far Cry 3's influence is all over it (zip-lines and watchtowers), but there's just something missing from it at the moment.

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State of decay. Thankfully my characters aren't getting bummed by hordes anymore since the last update. Which is nice. Picked up Prototype 2 for a tenner on Saturday. Boom. Forgot how much fun that game was/is. Tempted to give The Last of Us a go on survivor.. Not sure I'm ready for that yet tho.

Mainly been Black Ops II for me. Been doing a few clan challenges via Elite, which gives the game some kind of justification to jump on each day.

Grand Slam Tennis 2 a little bit as well this morning and yesterday. The great Wimbledon fever has caught me, and I actually want to play the sport itself. Free public tennis courts in town, though I guess they will be packed with people because of Murray winning yesterday. I'm sure interest in the sport has gone up quite a bit in our country, specially that we have finally won a mens single Wimbledon since Fred Perry.

Finally finished Dishonored, which was simply a fantastic experience. I would have liked a few more weapons, but the uses and mechanics of the powers far surpassses anything Bioshock could even hope to implement. Plus the DLC is on sale next week, so... score! ^_^

I was thankfully able to swap Ride to Hell for a copy of GTA IV yesterday, so starting that again brought back a hell of a lot of memories. Saying that, though, Liberty City doesn't feel busy as it should - I do hope V will see the urban areas a little more populated. That, along with more customisation options could have truly made the title - those elements still make Bully my personal R* favourite - but IV is still a bloody good game all round.

I have been playing the spectacular, God Hand. Its sucha good game. Its a ridiculous, funny and a ball bustingly hard game, but its a fair game...

In all seriousness though its *****ing grand, played way back when it came out and almost forgotten what a gem it was. If you haven't played it do so. You can get it from the Ps store.

Once you get all your techniques sorted and have moves you are comfortable with, you can dodge duck dip dive and dodge til your hearts content and batter those mohawked demons and feel like a man with the power of a god in his arm. I'm BRUTAL AND RUTHLESS

The beginning was incredible. I felt quite emotional. The next bit was incredible. It made me feel different emotions. I went into work the next day declaring the second coming in the form of The Last of Us.

Now I'm playing the middle bit and quite honestly my main emotion is tedium. Wheeeewwww, those clickers and runners, huh? They're sure.. Ummm.. Aggressive AI wrapped up inside the same looping animated rigs, glued to patrol paths and so glaringly mechanical it almost hurts. I can't believe that I was actually desperate to encounter humans again. Sure, it's gonna get better. Everybody all over the world keeps telling me its gonna get better.

And you know what?

Ill stick with it to find out. That's because the production values are through the roof and the characters make me care what's going to happen.

But the actual game that's inside and running the show.. Well, that's a big chunk of Manhunt sprinkled with some Uncharted and spending a lot of time trying to convince me its not Half Life 2.

During the first couple of hours I was convinced that The Last of Us had broken free from the shackles of video games and had slapped cinema in the face with some incredible interactive story telling. *****, it had! The first couple of hours blew my mind. Unfortunately it wasn't long before it sat back down and remembered it was simply a video game.

I'm just looking forward to playing games for the sake of themselves again.
Current ones too, though I have to make my mind up in regards to what they actually are.
Skyrim PC could do with some more attention... oh, but I really am enjoying going back to FF7 on the PC. I haven't progressed any further at all since uploading that video, but I'll be really happy to.
Though before progressing to the Shinra Building for the first time, I'll probably do a bit of grinding to unlock the Meteorain limit break for Cloud (Cloud has to kill aprox 300 enemies himself for that).
Though I am contemplating downloading the hardcore mod... that's a massive overhaul to the enemies in the game and removes those problems mentioned in the podcast about the battles ultimately getting dull towards the end as you become very powerful.
Unless you really know how to use materia to it's maximum potential.

Lately I've just been too wrapped in recording clips from all kinds of things.

Though I did play through Castle of Illusion a couple of times just for fun and somewhat in preparation for the upcoming... re-imagining?
I can't emphasise enough how much easier it was the 2nd time through, though the Hard mode really is a bit mental.
Haven't got past the 2nd level on that mode yet.

Sadly i have not played much this week. But when I did I played Wizadry 8. A great old school RPG with a really interesting world, but it is long and a bit bloated with stuff which is why it is taking me so long to get through it.

Raptr is helping me decide which games to play lately. There are games I need to start, games I need to rank up on, games I need achievements on, and Raptr puts them all into nice lists for me to sort through and pick what I feel like playing. So this week its been:

All this left me with an urge to delve into a nice 800-hour RPG opus and there are a fair few candidates in my collection both old and new. But first I might just put some time aside to watch Wimbledon for a bit before I go all hikikimori on your asses.